Well that was a bizarre few days. We started hearing rumors about the Wapiti killer being somewhere near the Trail on Tuesday afternoon, so we stealth camped (pitched our tents off the trail to avoid being seen by passersby) that night. That same night, about a day north of where we were, he shot two fishermen after eating dinner with them. Crazy stuff. I'm glad we took an extra zero day in Marion, VA with Mom, otherwise we'd have been right in the area of the shootings.

The Trail was closed the next day so authorities could search the area for clues, so we ended up spending an evening at Trent's Grocery, where we ate enough honey buns to give an elephant diabetes. We got back on the trail yesterday morning, watched a downpour from inside a shelter, and arrived in Pearisburg around noon today. We've rented a car and are about to go hunt down an outfitter so I can pick up some trail runners... I've walked about 130 miles in Crocs and I'm awfully tired of not having actual shoes.

Other than the new shoes... the exciting thing about Pearisburg is that it's one of the traditional places where you send your winter gear home. That ought to shave at least 5lbs from my pack, putting me below 40lbs unless I'm carrying way too much food! Hooray!

Oh, and I'm quoted in this Roanoke Times story about the shootings. Sadly I didn't get my ugly mug attached to a story like my fellow hiker Bear Trap did. (When he was at Trent's, he was three spoons shy of finishing a half gallon of ice cream... then he tossed it up. Silly hikers, thinking they can eat anything.)

On Thursday night, Mr. Burns and I rolled into Partnership Shelter, located about 0.1 mile from the Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area headquarters... I guess they want to impress the casual visitor, so that shelter has a shower (disposable towels, aka tiny paper towels, are available for $0.25!), sink, no mice, etc. Pretty cushy! Obviously I took myself a nice long (sometimes scalding) shower to clean off the funk of forty thousand steps. After the shower, we walked over to the headquarters building and ordered pizza??? Talk about luxury! That was a whole lot of calories I didn't even have to carry! For the record, I had a 16" pizza, a stromboli (14" or so) and a loaded baked potato. I can't get town food without getting inordinate amounts of town food... I've got a reputation to look after.

The next day was a nice little amble to I-81, and the weather was absolutely perfect. I couldn't have asked for more. On top of the lovely walk, it was a walk to a motel where we were meeting Mom, who came down from the DC area with a picnic lunch for us. And a cooler full of Belgian beer. Mmmmm, beer.

To make things even more ridiculous, we then checked into the General Francis Marion Hotel in Marion, VA, which is certainly one of the swankest hotels I've ever stayed in... let's compare, shall we?

Tent	Hotel
1" thick sleeping pad	impossibly thick king sized mattress
sleeping bag just long enough to fit in, that smells like, well, me	no fewer than 4 different layers of sheets, blankets, quilts, etc, all freshly laundered
a tiny little 8"x14" towel that's about as thick as a paper towel	ELEVEN, COUNT 'EM, ELEVEN TOWELS IN A WAY-TOO-BIG-BATHROOM

In other words, this is definitely the cushiest zero day I've taken so far... egad.

The last bit of good news for this post: the 200ml Nalgene bottle I bought in Nantahala (slightly over 100 miles into the hike) that's been empty since then because every county we walk through is dry... it'll be full of some lovely single malt Scotch this afternoon. I've toted the silly thing about 400 miles and finally it's going to get some use!

Ok, one last bit of good news... I'll be trekking up roughly parallel with I-81 for the next 4-5 weeks, so if you're a Virginian (Richmond kids, NoVA kids...) you should email me and we can figure out how to hike together. The hills here aren't nearly as brutal as GA, NC and TN, so I wouldn't even feel too bad about making you walk up them.

In the end, I decided to go ahead and be a moron and walk 33 miles into Damascus... it was certainly moronic, but the meal paid for by the Pied Piper of Pain (Sharkey) made it worthwhile, and the chance to take two zero days in a row (also known as the Robert Parish) in Damascus is really quite nice. Oh, and these fancy yellow shoelaces I got as a reward for the long day are freakin' sweet.

My feet should be healed up and ready to go by Monday morning when we start plodding through the rest of Virginia. We're 4-5 weeks from the DC area. (And one week or so from being near Blacksburg, Walp. I got your text, but by the time I tried to respond I lost cell reception. There isn't much technology out here... I can't wait to reach the Virginia Technology Corridor!)

Some sweet day in the hopefully near future I'll get to a computer that'll let me upload the pictures I've taken so far.

Rather than be a moron with me, Mr. Burns decided to do that 33 miles in two days, pulling into town this afternoon. I have to swing by the outfitter's here to pick up some new insoles and sundry stuff, and then the rest of my weekend involves beer and sitting by a river... it's a tough life out here!

We're a few days shy of Virginia right now, resupplying before making a run into Damascus, VA. People keep calling Damascus the "1/4 point", but it's actually more like 1/5. It's the same way with the "halfway point", Harpers Ferry, which is a couple hundred miles short of the actual halfway point. Goofy trail traditions. Hikers can't do math, I guess.

If my foot wasn't complaining so loudly, I'd be doing a 33 mile day into Damascus (another goofy trail tradition) just because. As it is, though, I'm glad to still be making forward progress. A couple of days ago my right arch felt like it'd spent too much time in a Cuisinart. Such is life out here, I suppose. I'm looking forward to Damascus where I can get some insoles that'll support my foot a bit better. Happily, that's it for the injury report... we're both holding up pretty well, especially the spry old Mr. Burns.

The last 50 miles of trail have been surprisingly mellow... nothing really brutal since Erwin, TN. Well, maybe a few hills here and there... at the top of one particularly infamous hill sits the highest shelter on the Trail, at 6250'. I stopped to have lunch there and watched what I hope is the last snow I see until New England. It was definitely the last 6000' hill until Mt. Washington, so at the very least we won't have much brutal mountaintop weather for a long while. It's always a bit of a shock to walk through a valley where it's 60F and sunny, then an hour later be on top of a hill in a driving snowstorm.

(unconnected in the Internets sense, the woods themselves are quite connected.)

Sorry for the lack of updates, but there hasn't been much in the way of wired-ness out here since we left Franklin, NC a couple hundred miles ago. We're now in Erwin, TN, and only a shade over 100 miles from Virginia.

Since leaving Franklin, we've walked through an interesting mixture of weather patterns. It feels like most days have been overcast or rainy, but we've had plenty of utterly perfect days as well. Today was absolutely gorgeous, and a nice way to (hopefully) say goodbye to winter. You have no idea how nice it is to walk in 60F and sunshine after two days of snow! Most of the terrain we've covered looked like it'd be really nice in better weather, but that's how it goes sometimes. When the weather cooperates, there's more than enough beauty out here to make up for the wetter days.

I (yes, me!) even got up before dawn to make a sunrise at Mt. Cammerer Lookout in the Smokies. I broke camp later than I wanted to, and misjudged the mileage, so I ended up doing 4.1 miles (mostly up) in 55 minutes. Hopefully that'll be the last time I have to pull such antics, but it's nice to know I'm capable of it.

The first real town outside of the Smokies, and the first town truly on the Trail is Hot Springs, NC, and it's amazing. If you're looking for a weekend of peace and quiet, look no further than Elmer's Sunnybank Inn... even Mr. Burns (Greg and/or Dad) enjoyed a huge vegan meal and was amazed by how tasty it was.

We're staying here in Erwin at least tonight, and maybe another night to let things recover a bit... knocking out 15 to 18 miles a day, every day, really wears on you quickly. A lot of our fellow hikers are also starting to realize that it's better to cover more miles on days when you walk, and really relax on days when you don't. It's just about time to catch a shuttle into town to buy a 2lbs jar of peanut butter, hopefully this time it'll last me more than 3 days. (That's a bit of a fib... I actually went through 2.5lbs of peanut butter in 3 days.)

Mr. Burns and I pulled into Franklin, NC this afternoon and checked into a motel. All it takes to transition from stinky mountain man to a semi-civilized human is a shower, some laundry, and a few pounds of all-you-can-eat country goodness.

We're looking forward to a little weekend party here for hikers, featuring free BBQ and free beer. It runs both Friday and Saturday night, but we'll be leaving here Saturday morning to get to Nantahala Outdoor Center by Sunday and then Fontana Dam (the start of the Smokies!) by Wednesday. And five days later, we'll be out of the Smokies, inching ever closer to weather that one could call "temperate". We've had a couple of mornings that were around 20 degrees, and we'll probably see a few more of those when we're in the high altitudes of the Smokies. I can't wait to do the 3 mile walk from Fontana Dam to Shuckstack (a firetower pretty much directly above Fontana)... 2000' of elevation in 3 miles. Yeehaw!

The computers I'm able to use (at least so far) aren't very capable, so it doesn't look like I can get pictures uploaded for a while. No worries, though, I'm carrying 6GB and doubt I'll take near that many pictures on the whole trip. Worst case, pictures from GA through WV will be posted on the weekend of June 1.

...you may now walk straight up for a mile.

the first climb in NC was one of the rougher hills we've seen so far. The weather has been perfect, though, so you'll hear no complaints here. It's supposed to be in the seventies in a few days! Rain's forecasted for the weekend, so I'll call the Atlantans tomorrow evening... If I don't have a date at Nantahala on Sunday, I'm going to enjoy BBQ and beer in Franklin this weekend and avoid the rain. Que sera, Maine's not going anywhere!

A happy bit of Easter trail magic from Ox and Connie, two of the finest UT Volunteers I've ever met! Another day or two and we'll be in NC. Getting to Nantahala on Saturday night, if some certain Striepes want to meet up on Sunday... Drop me an email if you can make it and the weather looks good. Next good Southern meetup is Fontana Dam, NC.